Choices
by cravethesun
Summary: [The Bourne Supremacy] There are some choices you can't make until it's too late. Marie POV.


_He killed me. _

I can still remember, the dust on the road, the sun beating down in relentless resignation. The car smelled like Jasmine and Jason smelled like sweat. I remember the slight furrow in his brow, the disappointment that he couldn't possibly know he was feeling. Because we had been happy in Goa. And because now it was over.

_I loved him and he killed me._

A peculiar way to die, I suppose. Driving hurriedly down that precariously constructed bridge, my hair blowing in my eyes, on a sunny day that could've been like any of the others we had shared. Jason's words had been clipped and brief, focused on the task at hand. I knew what he was thinking. I knew that he thought he would kill whoever had been sent to eliminate us. Failure was never an option for Jason. I'm not sure it ever would be.

It didn't hurt much, the bullet that sliced through my brain. It didn't hurt much, although it did kill me instantly, I suppose. It's funny, now that it's over and done with, how I so often feared death. In my dreams I had visions of it, chasing me, chasing _us_. Faceless hit men, shadowy packages tossed through our window, into our home. My corpse, sometimes burned beyond recognition, other times with a clean bullet hole through the forehead. But the actual event was more like the sharp crack of a migraine and then--nothing. Upon further reflection, I consider myself somewhat fortunate, as images of my frail bedridden father spring to mind, begging me to put a stop to the chemo, begging me to steal some morphine, begging me to steal a gun. Anything to stop the pain.

_As sure as he loaded the gun._

Jason, when he realized what had happened, did everything. His frantic struggles with the seat, trying to resuscitate me, trying so hard. But I know during those moments he cursed his vast knowledge of medicine, of the human body, of how to kill someone quickly and efficiently. The knowledge which told him I was dead. I know he wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that there was a chance. But he couldn't. Treadstone had taken that from him as well.

He kissed me and I saw the pain in his eyes, the destruction of his soul. He kissed me and I hated him. Hated how I felt responsible for the ruin that his life had suddenly become. But I asked for this, I invited it with my ignorance. I just never truly believed it could end this way. I ignored what he had so often tried to tell me.

Thinking now, as thinking is all I can do, I realize my complicity. We had both wanted to pretend. Me, because I loved him with all the fierceness that my heart would allow, I love that I knew others would find perverse and a love that frightened me because I did not. I suppose that was the reason I would look through his notebook, violating him, exposing the childish questions he posed to himself and no longer to me. I couldn't bear not knowing.

_As sure as he pulled the trigger._

Now I know everything, of course. I see everything he does, everyone he meets. I know that after he found his true name from Pamela Landy he's been relentless, tracking down operatives, government agents, breaking into apartments and offices, insatiable for any information he can uncover. I see him struggling to put the pieces of his past together, except now I'm not there to help him. I'm not there for him to take comfort in. When the confusion and frustration becomes too much for him, I'm no longer there for him to hold close, his face pressed into the curve of my neck, the silent shaking of his body that I tried to ignore, the scalding heat of his breath against my skin that I could not.

I've watched him almost be killed countless times, his body becoming bruised and battered. I remember the first night we made love, in that nondescript hotel in Paris, when I traced the bruises which had created a darkened pattern against his skin. Marveled at the faded scars on his inner elbow, the base of his thigh, the bullet holes that were still tender to the touch, until he stiffened, whispered _stop, _trapping my hands against the thin mattress.

I hate that love wasn't enough wasn't enough to save my life or erase his guilt. I hate the cosmic unfairness of this world which led to the man I loved being responsible for my death.

I miss him. I don't want it to be over. And maybe that's what I hate even more. There's always the possibility that someday it will be over for Jason. But never for me. My fate was sealed when he wedged himself into my cramped car. My death certificate signed with our first kiss.

Now all I am able to do is wait for him to find me again. And hope, perhaps selfishly, that it is sooner rather than later.

Our words replay themselves, over and over, taunting me:

_"We don't have a choice!"_

_"Yes you do."_ So strong, so stupidly sure of myself.

Because I was wrong; He never had a choice.

But I always did. And I died because I refused to make it.

AN-had the urge to write this after watching bourne supremacy the other day. Consider it a prelude of sorts to a multi-chapter jason/nicki story i've decided to write. Crit and advice always welcome :)


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